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“He was the only one of us who had committed armed robberies and gotten away with it before,” Everest said. “We knew he could do it.”
“Except for his time in the slammer,” Randy said.
“Yeah, but we got away with it for several heists. Besides, we grew up with Manning, and we knew him and trusted him. Everything was going fine until he kept the jewelry during the last of the heists and hid the take from us,” Everest said.
“That’s because he and Phil had a beef over the cut. And, damn it, I still think those people at the cabin found the jewelry. They found Manning. Who would have ever thought it? So what if on their hikes they found the jewelry?” Randy asked. “Or they found it on him?”
“It wouldn’t have been sitting on top of the ground in full view for them to see.”
“Yeah, but do you think Manning had a shovel with him when he buried it?” Randy asked.
Everest stopped. “No. I’m sure the police would have found the shovel on him or somewhere near the river where he swam across.”
“Right. So he would have just buried the jewelry under leaves and tree branches or maybe dug a little into the earth with his bare hands. But in the woods, it would be hard to do—you know, because of all the tree roots.”
“A log then? He could have scooped some earth out and hid it under a log.”
“Yeah, that’s possible. But there could be hundreds of fallen trees in the woods. You know, even though Phil killed him out here and everyone’s thinking Manning had the jewelry on him, what if he hadn’t? What if he had buried it or hid it somewhere else?” Randy kicked at the ground with the toe of his boot, looking frustrated. “We should never have trusted him to keep the jewelry to pawn it and turn it into cash.”
“He’s done it before and knew what he was doing. And he had a guy who was converting the stuff for him, and he wouldn’t tell us who it was. He just changed the rule when it came to everyone’s cuts was all—because he was the one who was doing most of the workload and we were mostly along for the ride,” Everest said.
Kayla had also wondered if Manning had buried it somewhere else. She wished she could have been recording all of their conversation. Then she heard someone approaching, and she smelled another man’s scent. She frowned. Where did she know that scent from? She realized it was the man who had come for Manning’s keys at the lodge. Phil hadn’t been that man. So whoever the shaved-headed guy was, he had to have given the keys to Phil to go to the bank and use them on Manning’s safe deposit boxes.
She moved farther away from his approach.
“Hey, wait up for me.”
“Gerald, why do you always have to be so damned late to the party?” Everest asked. “Phil said next time he’d take care of you too.”
He didn’t look at all like the shaved-headed, bare-faced man in a baseball cap who had come to the hotel for the keys. Now he had a red fuzzy head and was growing out a beard and mustache.
They all used flashlights to peer around at the woods.
“Where’s Phil?” Gerald asked. “I thought we were supposed to meet him. That he figured out where the jewelry was.”
She recognized his voice now—low and deep, annoyed, just like the shaved-headed man’s voice had been when he came for Manning’s keys at the lodge. She hadn’t heard Phil’s voice yet. That would cinch that she’d heard him speaking in the woods with Manning when she and Roxie had been running as wolves.
“Phil is out here somewhere. But you know it’s private property and yelling for him isn’t a good idea,” Everest said.
“Besides, there are wolves out here,” Randy said. “They chased us before, and we heard them howling again.”
“Wolves?” Gerald’s voice was dark with worry.
“Yeah, so don’t run or they’ll chase you and eat you,” Everest said. “Come on. I think I hear him this way.”
She wondered where Phil had disappeared to too. He had been there, but then the arrival of the other men had taken her attention, and suddenly he was gone—like a ghost vanishing in thin air. If he had wanted to meet up with them, why was he hiding from them now?
Then Nate howled. He was getting closer to her location, but she didn’t want to howl and alert the men she was really close by them. She was afraid they’d all turn and shoot a bunch of times at the woods, and she might get hit. Nate would be able to follow her scent and would know that she was close to the men or she would have howled back.
Maybe he was howling to let others of the wolf pack know they were out there again, giving their location. And probably to scare the men off so they would leave and she wouldn’t be hurt. But she wanted them here so Peter could catch them out here again.
“Shit, we got to get out of here,” Randy said.
“You go, but if Phil’s got the jewelry, we’re not sharing it with you,” Everest said.
“You didn’t have wolves chasing you the last time. So where the hell is Phil then?” Randy and the others moved off, and Kayla heard something heading in her direction.
When she saw Nate moving toward her in the underbrush, quiet as a mouse, she smiled. It was her loving wolf. He brushed up against her, lickedher face, and nipped her ear. She suspected he wished she had gone to the cabin with him, but she wanted to make sure their people found these men and took them into custody.
